Swiss Classics: Dri Horlini & Portjengrat Traverse

Last week I was in the Swiss Valais Alps for some alpine climbing as a part of the West Lancs Scout Mountaineering group bi-annual alpine trip. We had a day up on the Weismeiss glacier on the first day to refresh skills and gain a bit of acclimatization. The weather has been fairly unsettled in Europe for the last few weeks, with it putting a lot of precipitation down and this could be seen as the area that is usually free of snow during the summer round the top of the Hoshaas lift was in places inches deep.

First tower of the Dri Horlini (three horns).

The next day myself and Ash headed up to the Almageller hut managing to do the appraoch pretty swiftly in 2.45hrs including a half hour for a drink at the Almagelleralp Hotel half way which we we both pretty surprised out as we've both been neglecting cardiovascular activity for the last few months. We checked in at the hut, found out bedroom, had a bite to eat and then decided to go and have a crack at the Dri Horlini Traverse AD in the afternoon as we'd been eying it up on the approach to the hut.

The Dri Horlini (3209m) is a huge rock fin, several hundred meters tall composed of beautiful looking compact orange gneiss. The traverse of its three summits gives wonderful exposed alpine rock climb of mostly UIAA III with a few moves of IV. Theres also a few abseils and down-climbs. There is some fixed protection here and there but we were last of a few nuts and cams. We reached the start in about 15 minutes from the hut and roped up to move together, we moved really sickly probably stopping to redistribute gear or swap over 4-5 times, and we over took a guided party on the ridge. Just as we were getting towards the end of the route the temperature dropped and we spotted a few snow flakes which made us quicken the pace further. We did the route in 1 hours 35 minutes considering the guidebook time is 2-4 hours we were very, very happy with.

Climbing on the traverse.

We spent that evening in the hut with some friends who were attempting the Weismeiss the next day, our plan was to head up and try the Portjengrat Ridge AD+ on the Pizzo d'Andolla. We were a little apprehensive as its a long route, with a guidebook time of 10 hours and neither of us were that acclimatized yet, but with the confidence of knowing we'd done the Horlini in well under guidebook time we decided to give it a go.

Our route started from the col to the left of the smallest peak in the center and followed the ridge obscured from view to the highest peak in the picture.

We got up for the 4am breakfast, and were out of the hut before 4:30am following the approach trail through the moraines and eventually across the now heavily receded glacier to Port, a small col before the Mittelruck. We were here for 6am, half an hour under guidebook time, which was a good start, until we went to get the guidebook out to find the start of the route and found we didn't have it. Dam. We came to the conclusion that route finding couldn't be too hard, it was a ridge route so we couldn't get too lost and we had a rough idea of the descent so we'd give it a go. As a back up we sent a message to Chris to text us a description when he got up.

Section of the Portjengrat, approaching the first of the summit towers.

The first section of the route from Port involved a little downclimbing onto the west face before a wonderful crack system which we moved together up led us to the ridge crest. The ridge climbing continues, and is very exposed with a 300m vertical drop to your right, down into Italy. The climbing is never hard from memory it was all around UIAA III but there were one or two moves of IV.

After 7 hours or so of continuous climbing we reached the summit. I don't know how far we came but we moved together and did several full 50m pitches as well. The climbing was superb all the way along, mostly the rock was sound, there was only one section with some loose rock where microwave sized piece almost took Ash out. We climbed the whole route in boots and gloved hands as it was cold, I took my gloves off twice for the two cruxes I lead. For the most part the ridge was relatively snow free but there were still a few sections where stubborn snow from the recent storm got in the way.

From the summit, we were able to follow a fairly brief and ambiguous route description that Chris has send us - he managed to condense a two page route into the guidebook into a single text message. We traverse some gendarmes and some scary snow bridges/cornices on the ridge before gaining our exit, a hanging glacier which we traversed before crossing another rock ridge and finally ending up back down on the moraine above the hut.

Ash taking a breather on the summit, with more weather coming in.

We did the route hut-hut in 11 hours, so an hour over guidebook time. But considering we weren't acclimaitized, didn't have a guidebook and had poor weather (it was snowing on and off all day and visibility was down to 30-50m) we were pleased with our effort. Certainly one of the best if no the best alpine rock route that I've done, I highly recommend it. When describing this to a friend I was trying to think of an analogy in British climbing routes and I think Ceneifon Arete in Snowdonia, but harder climbing (HS rather than Mod), 10x as exposed and 100x as long would be fairly fitting! Go and do it, you won't be disappointed.